Saturday, July 19, 2008

Do you ever kind of wonder where technology is taking us? Used to be you had a cell phone, personal organizer and camera and now you have gadgets that wrap all those services into one. I anticipate that somewhere in the not-so-distant future we're all going to have ipods that will not only play music and videos but will be fully equipped to shave our legs, remotely start our dishwashers and microwave a burrito for lunch.

This gadget is kind of like that--it does all sorts of things that you wouldn't normally expect a mere alarm clock to do. Somehow things have gone from letting a rooster do all the work to having this sleek little box that can hold pictures and music, acting as a digital picture frame, video, FM radio, MP3 player and tell the time.

This is the Philips AJL308 alarm clock and it has a 7-inch color LCD display screen like you see above but what you can't see is that it has a spot for a SD card so you can show a mini slideshow or play your favorite MP3 files. The alarm feature itself can be set to start out soft then grow in volume so you can wake up without the lightning bolt of a jolt most clocks give you.

All in all it's quite a cute little gadget that makes a fun toy for the gadget buff in your life (hey, maybe that's you!) There are a couple things that should be kept in mind though. First of all there isn't any memory in the unit itself so to have any pictures (.jpg files only) beyond the little generic photo you see displayed above you have to keep your SD card inserted. Pull it out and your pictures disappear and you're back to Fred and Wilma there.

Also, the picture quality on the frame isn't of the highest quality. The resolution is 480 X 234 which isn't spectacular. It's certainly good enough but don't expect the top of the line digital display you might be looking for in a expensive digital picture frame.

Finally, there isn't any place for a battery. You know what that means don't you? Yea, if the power goes out in the middle of the night all your information is lost and you're resetting everything in the morning--if you wake up in time.

But still with these minor issues it's a fun little gadget and it seems to be about the only one of its kind yet so to find all these features in one place is nice. Give it another year and Philips will probably come out with a unit that will also despense milk for your morning Cheerios.

Thank you to Philips Electronics which has given me one of these lovely all-in-one alarm clocks to give away to one of you fine people. Just think, at this time next week you could be waking up to the growing sounds of your favorite ABBA tunes and pictures of your kids scoring the winning soccer goal--good luck!

Here's how to win:

Before 12 am Monday go to the giveaway entry form on this page and enter your name and email. I will pick one of the names at random, contact the winner via their email and publish the winner's first name and home town in next Tuesday's post. See the bottom of the entry form for more details.

I'm sorry but this giveaway is only open to U.S. readers.

Sponsored by Pak Naks--Back to school time is nearly here and these will send them back with cuteness.

Hi,My oldest Son Brandon will be 21 on Aug. 1st and I think this would be a great gift for his new independence into Adulthood. He just started a new job and I don't want him to only depend on his cell phone alarm. Thank-youcontact:balls32789@yahoo.com

Great blog! Lots of useful information, thanks. I'd love a real Alarm clock, I've been using my cell phone for years and it's not that dependable especially when the battery goes dead during the middle of the night, Late yet again for work! UGH!